Taxpayer Facing Alt-Fuel Fallout Ready To Throw The Bums Out

Soon we will be noticing more than $420 million dollars worth of new vehicles on the streets and highways of Arizona. You will recognize them by their license plates, which start with the letters, AF could that stand for Arizona Freebies?

The residents of Arizona generously paid for more than half the price of these vehicles with the tax monies assessed them each year by the Arizona Revenue Department, presumably to run the government. This brilliant piece of legislation was dreamed up by Representative Jeff Groscost, speaker of the House.

The reasoning for the bill presented to the legislature was that by offering almost free vehicles, equipped with both propane tanks and gas tanks, these people might be persuaded to use only propane, and thus keep our environment free of the noxious gas fumes the traditional gas-run vehicles spew out into the atmosphere. No guarantee was made that these people would fill their propane tanks, or use them to run their vehicles. The House passed the bill, and Governor Jane Hull signed it.

I did not hear of this "free" offer until the governor shut the program down because of the many who were taking advantage of it, and I have talked with several other people who also were unaware of it. However, I have heard that Rep. Groscost purchased more than one of these vehicles himself, and both our District No. 4 representatives, Jake Flake and Debra Brimhall, are driving new trucks. I am wondering how many others in our state government rushed out and bought one or more of these vehicles before the program was discontinued.

I am also wondering why anyone would think such a small portion of the millions of motor vehicle users in Arizona could possibly make a dent in the pollution. The only possible reason I can think of for dredging up a scheme like this is for Rep. Groscost and his pals in the legislature, and perhaps government officials as well, to get a cheap motor vehicle. I don't believe he should be allowed to go free. I would like to see him, and all those who participated in getting this bill passed, removed from office, all these freebies recalled, and the money from their sale returned to the people's tax fund to be used properly. It is a disgrace for our public officials, who are entrusted with the job of running our government, to perpetrate this gigantic and ridiculous fraud against the people they are paid to protect. And the worst thing of all is their using the environment as the reason for it. That's one perk I cannot swallow. I hope some of the other taxpayers feel the same, and that they will show their disapproval in the coming election and vote some of these fraudulent legislators out of office, or else bring a class-action suit to remove all of them, including some of them who are not running for office this year.